Analysis of my games so far
I think I've made some great decisions this game and a number of bad ones as well.
Leader pick
Financial is great, and is definitely helping me a lot. I think it's worth 60 cpt or so right now, that's about a 30% bonus to my net income. I have a bunch of cottages maturing, so this will be rising further in coming turns. Very happy with this choice. Aggressive however... not so much. As I mentioned long ago, I picked this to force myself to get into a more aggressive mindset. It hasn't worked out, and I'm not getting much out of Aggressive. Alternatives:
- Industrious
- Spiritual
- Philosophical
- Imperialistic
- Organized
I would have been happy with all of those. Creative would be best, but Superjm snatched that one already. With how many wonders I've been producing, Industrious would have been quite the hammer saver. Still, Industrious is mainly about winning wonder races and I managed that anyway. Organized would have been great too, would currently save me around 36 cpt and give big discounts on courthouses and lighthouses. Philosophical has awesome synergy with MoM, but I couldn't count on that pre-game. Imperialistic has awesome synergy with GLH, also something I couldn't count on. And I believe that Imperialistic + Great Wall leads to 4x GG generation, not 3x (due to Imperialistic halving GG requirements, not boosting point generation).
Civilization pick
I'm happy with Rome, all in all. I'll get some use out of the Forum shortly, and Praetorians are a very nice unit. Obviously it was an AGG combo, and the aggressive approach failed. I've been playing a builder game. It may have done a lot to discourage aggression towards me and make NAPs easy to acquire, but most others have been running farmer's gambits as well. Warfare seems to be happening soon, just at the end of Praet usefulness. England or Sumeria would have been nice alternatives, but Rome is still high on my list of desired Civilizations.
Great Lighthouse
This is basically what I owe my economic succes to. Actually landing it was a fluke, though. It looks like nobody really prioritized it, allowing me to snag it even though I took a detour through Masonry and Monotheism first. Building it sooner would have set my expansion back a little, but with how valuable it's been that setback would have been worth it. It also hasn't given as much diplomatic fallout as is common, I've had an easy time getting open borders with my rivals. At this time I don't really need them anymore, as I have secured island cities for 2c trade routes. Post 165 suggests that the GLH plan happened in a discussion with slowcheetah, so
for that. I think I got to Currency last of all players, delaying this was instrumental in getting to GLH first. It currently gives me 30 extra trade routes! That's worth around 70 cpt (as all my island cities are getting 4x 3c trade routes).
4) Colossus
This was also a spur of the moment decision, and it was a good one. I knew from C&D that noone had Metal Casting, so I decided to go head over hells for it. It has amazing synergy with GLH, since all my cities from that point on were going to be coastal. I wish I had planned these things out, I could have very easily lost out on both. I was still caught up in warmonger mode earlier, so my ambition for wonders and expansion were not that great. Colossus is currently earning me 40 cpt and has worked wonders in reducing worker requirements. Colossus whined to me that he could have built it sooner but didn't realize I was after it and hence wasn't in as much of a rush, so I definitely got lucky here. However, once I put my mind to it I did a pretty good job of cranking out both GLH and Colossus at max speed. Azza built Colosus and could have taken Metal Casting, he chose to take Code of Laws instead. This was a lucky break for me, as I wouldn't have stood a chance of landing it otherwise.
Mausoleum of Mausollos
This was also somewhat of a spur of the moment decision. I looked at the tech tree after going for Sailing and realized that I was on path for another amazing wonder. I delayed Currency further in order to get it, and actually managed to plan this out properly. I had secured marble by that time, allowing me to chop it out rapidly. Unfortunately, my marble city was razed 2t before completing it.... Had that happened sooner, I would have been screwed. MoM is what I'm counting on to win me the game. Given my demographic advantages, repeated golden ages is going to be immensely profitable. I also haven't generated very many GPs yet, so I will be able to produce a large number expediently.
Warring Waterbat
This came closer to disaster. First I just wanted to provoke him into not settling in my direction and build up military. Then he violated the no passage part of our OB agreement and expanded towards me (no pink dot, but it has applied a lot of cultural pressure on my territory), so I decided to see if I was able to punish him for it. Long story short, I couldn't. And in a stroke of stupidity, I left my coastal city in his direction empty. I thought I'd be able to reinforce it if he came knocking, but he was able to 1-move it easily. This was a major setback, made worse by his suffocating culture. Had I been able to keep this city, I think I would have been able to hold on to the deer and the fish by II. And it almost went from bad to horrible when he landed a chariot by EE and came close to razing it. Fortunately I had troops positioned to move back and intercept. The good thing that came out of the war was that Waterbat both whipped heavily and teched Construction in order to defend against me. This ended up harming his economy more than mine, even taking the raze into consideration. He's still playing catch up now, and is no longer the #1 rival that I suspected at the time. I was afraid he would press his advantage and take the offense, but he seemd to have no such interest. With a good amount of catapults and a huge army of axemen, he just might have succeeded at razing either of my border cities and forcing me to commit more resources to my defense. Just noticed upon rereading that Waterbat was trying to secure my GD site for himself during pre-war negotiations. That's something I got out of the war, it's a great size 12 city now and gives me access to wine.
Religious path
I was proud of it at the time, but I think this was the mistake. I haven't gotten much out of landing Judaism and Christianity, and I don't think Hagia Sophia or Apostolic Palace were worth the focus. I could have gone for Literature instead, then I would have had National Epic and possibly Temple of Artemis. I would likely have been first to Philosophy, which would have gotten me a religion and a missionary. Monarcy has also been a dud for me. It wasn't worth revolting for alone, and I ended up waiting so long to revolt that I no longer needed the happiness. I could have skipped Priesthood as well. All in all, that just didn't work out and I think it set me back a little bit.
Happiness management
I ran into big happiness problems early on, hampering my growth considerably. I got gold early which was a big help, then planned on monarchy + judaism to tide me over until I could get gems + furs + silver. As stated above, monarchy + judaism came into effect much too late to really have any effect. I should have gone for furs earlier, I deliberately delayed them even though I already have EE settled, because I was relying on monarchy + judaism and Waterbat's warrior was stressing me out. Lesson learned: Plan out my early happiness needs better, and don't rely on early religion or monarchy. I also wouldn't have launched a GA that early, that was probably a little wasteful. I was still in the middle of a major expansion and growth push, and I was still whipping quite heavily. I'm happy I used the GM for a GA, but I think I should have delayed it.
Dotmap
I'm fairly pleased with my dotmap, unlike the blunders in PBEM29g. I did really good exploration of my surroundings, and I had the information required to make good decisions. BB was placed wrong, though. 1S would mean not sitting on a PH and losing out on rice (until border pop), but would have allowed me to place a very decent coastal city 3N of it. 4F wasn't that awesome anyway. I do think it was the right choice for a second city, worked well for cranking out workers and settlers.
CC never amazed me, but it did its job. It's also turning into a very decent alternate GP and junk wonder farm.
EE is not in a great location. If not for needing the furs, I would have placed it 2W in order to pick up horses and get first ring sheep. I could (and should) have picked up furs to my west instead, where they would be first ring on a forest. I was too caught up with my plan to harass Waterbat to make the best settling decisions. So my 5th city could have been in the JJ location, would have had the side effect of securing the deer tile that Azza is now hogging. 6th city would have been marble (needed marble for MoM around that time), 7th city would have been by sheep and horses and 8th city would have been on the tundra hill by Waterbat.
Micro management
Getting granaries up in new cities has taken me forever. I haven't had missionaries ready to spread my religion to new cities for easier granary whipping, and I often haven't had a worker ready to chop out a granary. I find I have enough workers now, but earlier I was in a crunch. Part of the "problem" was that GLH made new cities profitable right away so it made sense to rush expand and worry about infrastructure later. I think that was the right call, but I think I overdid it a little.
Overall I have made decent micro plans, especially for wonders. Research, growth and worker micro have all been coordinated quite well, with happiness being the only disappointment.
Diplomacy
Nothing much has happened, which has been in my favour. I ensured all the NAPs I needed in order to do major GLH REXing, and I have more than my share of contested lands. I might be heading into rough weathers now, but I'm pretty optimistic about that as well.
Exploration
Landed Magellan's
Knowing that the map was somewhat similar to PBEM29 and having landed it there helped a little, I thought of it right away this time and went pretty much straight for it. Open borders were critical in getting it, I wouldn't have been able to pass through otherwise (without declaring war). Have generally done pretty good exploration, and I was the first to settle the island by the capital. Spotting it ahead of time helped me a little in getting a settler and galley ready, since I had GLH it was a very high priority for me to get to that island for the trade routes. The first island city allowed me to REX lots with full trade routes, was very important.
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